cams_benton_b028_f009_001_024

24 [centered]

There is a class of people in our
time, unhappy and discontented, on account
of the failure, relative or absolute, of
their schemes of reform and rehabilitation.
The people have not appreciated them,
their teachings, or their projects. They had
promised themselves great satisfaction
in working beneficial changes in human
affairs, social, industrial, political, finan-
-cial, educational, moral, religious, through
agencies of their devising, developing, and
applying, through truths they have discov-
-ered, through schemes they have invented, or
through doctrines they have taught. These
are discouraged reformers who refuse to
be comforted because humanity is so
slow to discern the right and so reluc-
-tant to confer a benefit upon itself.
No dress reform makes its way into
the general acceptance. No moral reform is
even a partial success without prodigious ef-
-fort, and an outlay of energy that is too